Nearly Half of Employees Hide Workplace AI Use, Pointing to a Need for Openness and Policy Clarity

  • Nearly half of employees are entering company-related information into public AI tools to complete their tasks and hiding their AI use, out of fear of seeming lazy, risky, or non-compliant
  • 1 in 10 employees describe AI adoption in their workplace as “the Wild West,” unregulated, unclear, and out of control

LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA, August 13, 2025 — Laserfiche, the leading SaaS provider of intelligent content management and business process automation, today released new survey findings on AI adoption in the workplace, revealing that nearly half of Americans (49%) who use AI at work keep it to themselves, with 15% deliberately avoiding telling their manager.

As AI tools become more embedded in daily life, the survey reveals a workplace reality that is far less aligned. While many employees are eager to harness AI to boost productivity, inconsistent policies and cultural hesitation are fueling secrecy around AI adoption at work. Employees who are hiding their AI use worry it will be seen as lazy (16%), risky (15%), or out of step with company policy (16%).

A Mixed Workforce Mood

Employee sentiment around AI remains divided. While 21% are optimistic, and 22% say AI already helps them work faster or more efficiently, others are more cautious. Nineteen percent are skeptical, citing concerns about accuracy or misuse, and 13% are anxious or resistant, uneasy about the risks and consequences of incorporating AI into their workflows.

Younger generations are more optimistic about AI at work: 24% of Gen Z and 20% of Millennials say they see its potential but are still learning how to use it, compared to just 10% of Baby Boomers.

A New Frontier — with New Risk

Only one in three employees (36%) say their workplace has clear policies and approved AI tools in place. Meanwhile, 1 in 10 describe their organization’s AI environment as “the Wild West,” an unregulated space where people do what they want.

That lack of structure has consequences. Nearly half of employees (46%) admit to pasting company information into public AI tools, such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini, sometimes without knowing if the content is sensitive or confidential. Many turn to these tools in an attempt to gain a competitive edge (24%) or because their company’s own tools are too limited or hard to use (23%).

Older employees are significantly more cautious about using unofficial AI tools at work: 69% of Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation, and 35% of Gen X, avoid these tools, compared to just 21% of Millennials and 17% of Gen Z.

The Path Forward: Build Culture Before Crisis

These findings highlight a growing AI governance gap. Usage is outpacing policy, and fear is replacing transparency. To solve this, organizations must do more than roll out AI tools. They need to foster a culture where employees feel informed, supported, and aligned on how and when to use them.

“When employees feel like AI is their ‘dirty little secret,’ that’s not a tech problem, it’s a leadership one,” said Karl Chan, CEO of Laserfiche. “Many employees are eager to embrace AI to work but often resort to unofficial tools when company-approved options are too limited or difficult to use. Innovative organizations can meet employee needs and unlock new potential by implementing guidelines, and adopting IT-vetted, intuitive AI tools that help employees reach productivity goals.”

Methodology

The survey was conducted by Veridata Insights and commissioned by Laserfiche. It included 1,000 U.S.-based individuals aged 18 and over, census-balanced by age and gender.

About Laserfiche
Laserfiche is a leading enterprise platform that helps organizations digitally transform operations and manage their content with AI-powered solutions. Through scalable workflows, customizable forms, no-code templates and AI-enabled capabilities, the Laserfiche® document management platform accelerates how business gets done. Trusted by organizations of all sizes — from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises — Laserfiche empowers teams to boost productivity, foster collaboration, and deliver a superior customer experience at scale. Headquartered in Long Beach, California, Laserfiche operates globally, with offices across North America, Europe, and Asia.

Laserfiche Named a Leader in Nucleus Research Content Services and Collaboration Value Matrix 2025

Laserfiche is a Leader for the 10th consecutive year, ranks highest in usability.

LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA, JULY 23, 2025 — Laserfiche — the leading SaaS provider of intelligent content management and business process automation — is a Leader in the Nucleus Research Technology Value Matrix for Content Services and Collaboration for the 10th year in a row. Among the vendors evaluated, Laserfiche ranks highest overall in usability. Download a copy of the report here.

“As a leader in this year’s Value Matrix, Laserfiche was rated highest in usability for its AI productivity tools, new administration hub, process automation and integration capabilities,” said Evelyn McMullen, research manager at Nucleus Research and author of the report.
Nucelus Research CSC Technology Value Matrix™ 2025.

CSC as a Strategic Advantage: AI-powered Information Management

Recently released Laserfiche AI-powered features are aimed at boosting productivity even further and enabling automation at scale. Smart Fields, an out-of-the-box intelligent capture tool, allows customers to extract data automatically using natural language instructions, no matter the source or format. Smart Chat provides an intuitive chat interface that enables users to quickly gain insights from their repository content.

“As AI matures at an accelerated pace, vendors in the CSC market have the unique advantage of managing both structured and unstructured data from across the entirety of an organization,” the report’s Market Overview states.

Laserfiche AI features alongside powerful workflow automation, information governance and records management tools create new opportunities for organizational efficiency. Customers across industries use Laserfiche to increase productivity, create competitive advantage and drive growth.

“Laserfiche gives us the forms and workflow processes as well as data integration that enable efficiency at scale,” said Airline Hydraulics Chief Technology Officer Todd Schnirel. “Our Laserfiche-powered process improvements have supported us in achieving a significant increase in net revenue while adding very little operating expense.” 

“Being ranked a leader for 10 consecutive years is a testament to our product innovation,” said Thomas Phelps, senior vice president of corporate strategy and CIO at Laserfiche. “Our top ranking in usability reflects our core value of putting people first and our commitment to delivering intuitive solutions that empower users.”

To learn more about Laserfiche’s position in the Content Services and Collaboration market, download the report here.

About Laserfiche

Laserfiche is a leading enterprise platform that helps organizations digitally transform operations and manage their content with AI-powered solutions. Through scalable workflows, customizable forms, no-code templates and AI-enabled capabilities, the Laserfiche® document management platform accelerates how business gets done. Trusted by organizations of all sizes — from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises — Laserfiche empowers teams to boost productivity, foster collaboration, and deliver a superior customer experience at scale. Headquartered in Long Beach, California, Laserfiche operates globally, with offices across North America, Europe, and Asia. 

How Steinhafels Automated 100+ Employment Forms

Improving HR Efficiency with Updated Employee Forms
  • Lost paperwork
  • Inconsistent filing
  • A lack of security and confidentiality
  • Missed review deadlines
  • A lack of transparency
  • Lost time (up to 10 hours per week were devoted to physically managing files
  • Lack of integration between legacy software systemsAs Malmberg jokingly puts it, “We had more issues than Reader’s Digest!”

Implementing New Job Requisition and Employee Onboarding Processes

“When I tell people about our culture and technology change, I frequently get the question, ‘Where do you begin?’” says Malmberg. “Well, how would you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Malmberg and her team first sat down to create a list of what frustrated them the most. “We literally put up giant Post-it® notes across my office wall. Then we got out markers, scribbled notes and redrew our process workflows. It was a little tedious, but it saved a lot of time on implementation.”

With a strong understanding of its ideal processes, Steinhafels’ HR department turned to Laserfiche and Laserfiche solution provider CDI to facilitate the flow of information across different locations, managers and systems. Steinhafels’ first order of business was to eliminate all of the non-standardized forms. Using Laserfiche Forms, Malmberg’s team turned the paper forms into a smaller set of standardized electronic forms a hiring manager and new employee can complete and submit through an their intranet website.
Lynda Malmberg, Steinhafels’ Senior HR Manager
Electronic forms can be submitted online and automatically routed to key staff for immediate action.

With Laserfiche, users don’t need to constantly reenter the same information on each form. For example, when a manager enters an employee ID into the new hire form, the form prepopulates with data mined from the initial job application. This eliminates duplicate entries. Likewise, when employees fill out their new hire paperwork, entry of the employee badge number auto-populates the necessary demographic data. Steinhafels also automated various stages of the process:
  • A completed job requisition form launches a workflow that notifies a recruiting manager to review and approve the form prior to posting
  • Approved job requisitions are automatically posted to specific third-party career sites like Monster.com|
  • Employment applications (along with any uploaded resumes) are stored together with the requisition, and the hiring manager is notified by email that they have a new application to review
  • The pre-hire process, which includes a background check, is launched via a status change to the metadata on the application
  • Once the application is changed to “hired,” Laserfiche:
    1. Generates an employee and digital employee folder
    2. Sends an email link to the hiring manager to complete the New Hire form
    3. Sends a welcome email to the new employee
    4. Automatic processes purge documents that have reached the end of their retention schedules

Becoming Experts in HR Automation

“This is what our IT department does for Laserfiche: it sets up the server, monitors the server processes and occasionally installs updates. That’s it,” says Malmberg. “Once we learned how to build workflows, we copied and pasted and changed what we needed to make them work for the new form we developed.” However, Steinhafel’s IT department still keeps busy. “They have bigger fish to fry and are happy to let us take the lead on HR-related projects,” says Malmberg. Left to its own devices, the HR department has achieved major success. By becoming more efficient, HR was able to continue driving Steinhafel’s growth without expanding its own department. This has resulted in annual savings of $80,000 that would have gone to more HR staff. Additionally, the HR team has more time to devote to engaging employees and helping them solve issues as they arise. The HR department’s results have inspired other departments to try Laserfiche. “We started with 36 HR forms in the repository. Now we’re up to 88 forms across all departments—from Sales to Merchandising,” says Malmberg. “Laserfiche spread everywhere after people got used to seeing what we built and how easy it was to work with.”

So what do you think – is it time for HR automation at your organization?

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